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Overused iPhone passcodes pose security issue

App developer Daniel Amitay has used anonymous information collected through his Big Brother Camera security app to postulate the 10 most popular iPhone passcodes.

On his blog, Amitay described why the similar setups of his security app and the official iPhone passcode lock led him to believe a strong correlation exists between user codes for each.

After collecting codes used by over 200,000 users, he discovered that 15 percent of all the passcodes were one of 10 combinations.

The most common code: 1234. Other common codes included repeated digits, such as 0000 or 5555, and the numerical keyboard equivalent of the word "love," 5683.

Given the prevalence of so few passcodes, Amitay warned that thieves trying these codes would be able to access the information on approximately one out of seven stolen iPhones.

Amitay announced his findings just a day after UK firm BullGuard released a report showing users are naive about Smartphone internet security. More than half of respondents to a BullGuard survey did not know that a Smartphone could be infected by a virus. Taken together, the weakness of iPhone lock passcodes and the lack of security software installed by users make the devices a prime target for cyber criminals.